Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Gene Glynn's managerial influences

Gene Glynn at spring training in Fort. Myers.

Gene Glynn, currently the manager of the Twins' Triple-A affiliate and candidate for the major league job, is something of an athletic legend in the Mankato area: Mr. Basketball at Waseca High in 1975, a star at Mankato State in both basketball and baseball.

Unlike the other known in-house candidates who've had interviews, Glynn never played in the majors. He played seven years in the Montreal Expos farm system, then went into coaching.

He had 13 years as a coach in the majors for four teams -- but oddly enough, really only two managers:

1994-98: Colorado Rockies, under Don Baylor.1999: Montreal, under Felipe Alou.2000-02: Chicago Cubs, under Baylor. (Baylor was fired in midseason; Rene Lachemann had the reins for one game, then Bruce Kimm was named interim manager.)2003-06: San Francisco Giants, under Alou.

After that, he scouted for Tampa Bay before taking the Rochester job for the Twins. He's kept the Red Wings at or above .500 in each of his three seasons.

Glynn's minor league skippers, as listed by Baseball Reference, are Bob Bailey, Larry Bearnarth, Rick Renick, Buck Rogers and Alou. Rogers and Alou, of course, managed major league teams for years; Rogers shows up on Paul Molitor's list as well. (The manager for Glynn's first season is not listed on BA.)

I view Glynn as a dark horse candidate. Unlike Molitor and Doug Mientkiewicz, Glynn hasn't been directly involved in the development of prime prospects Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano, nor of such secondary prospects as Kennys Vargas, Eddie Rosario or Jorge Polanco. (He has had Danny Santana, Josmil Pinto, Alex Meyer and Trevor May.)

What he does bring to the table is experience at instructing (his role in the Montreal system before being hired for the Colorado job) and scouting (Tampa Bay).

1 comment:

He's my choice, based on how Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press described him the latest edition of Gleeman and the Geek. He sounds like a bold, outside of the box choice. . . so there is no chance he will get chosen.